Rig Spotlight: Ron Lee Christianson's ALIENS Mod

We first met Ron Lee Christianson of Blue Horse Studios at MOD24 where he and Team Mongoose partner Lee Harrington built an awesome Call of Duty mod. Afterwards, he told us about his great idea for a another themed mod in the works, only this time it would be from ALIENS movie. After just witnessing his artistic handiwork firsthand, we knew Ron was fully capable of pulling it off. A month later, he sent over this video and we knew we'd all be in for a treat.

When he unveiled the finished results at PDXLAN, it was nothing less than amazing.

We caught up with Ron to get details on this hyper-detailed rig that would give Ripley nightmares.

The ALIENS Mod looks awesome. How long did it take you to finish?

I started the mod just after MOD24 (Fall 2014) and completed it 4 months later, just in time for PDXLAN 2015.

The xenomorph alone took over 100 hours to sculpt. Here it is shown climbing out of the top hatch of the case and is removable.

Tell us about the rig. What case is this?

It's actually 2 cases. I used a Cooler Master HAF X along with a Cooler Master 915 for the project and I had to do some slight modifications to make the two chassis fit together. On top, the HAF X is housing all of the system hardware while the 915 on the bottom is for hard drive storage.

Click to enlarge

When you said it would be ALIENS themed, you weren't kidding. Seems like you get almost every detail, even down to the Weyland-Yutani logos?

Right, the entire chassis is themed to look like Hadley's Hope from the second ALIEN movie. On the interior of the chassis I fabricated panels to simulate the look of the sub floors, as well as airlock doors on the top HAF X and the side panel door.

Click to enlarge

It's obvious that you tried to put as much detail into this build as possible, especially some aspects that you don't see in your typical mods.

To complete the ALIENS theme, I used several different modeling techniques, such as clay sculptures, RTV silicone and resin casting to complete the xenomorph, facehugger and alien eggs.

Click to enlarge

We cannot emphasize the amount of detail that went in to this mod. Please check out his video from his YouTube channel where he goes into greater detail of all the elements completed for the build, including the fabrication of claysculpt, mold making, resin cast, polystyrene, and airbrushing.

A third episode is in the works. We can't wait to see what he will come up with next.